


gonna stick to my guns (like you taught me)

by goldensteps



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Parent(s), Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:42:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldensteps/pseuds/goldensteps
Summary: If he were here she’d get a juice pop and a story out of the whole sneaking-outta-bed thing, but the theme of this weekend, and the rest of her life apparently, is that he isn’t. So she wraps her tiny arms around her pillow and listens to the unfamiliar voices floating up from the floor below, the occasional laugh turning into a choked sob, the clink of bottles on glasses and the overwhelming weight of grief resting upon her childhood home.A teenager with floppy hair stumbles up the stairs. She recognizes him from the picture in the kitchen, and unlike the other strangers, he doesn’t make any attempt to hide his crying.“Are you. Okay?" he asks, "Like do you need anything, should I go get Pepper, or?”She shakes her head.“Are you sure? Uh, m-my name’s Peter, by the way”She hesitates.“Peter, do you know any good bedtime stories?(aka morgan and peter growing and grieving and leaning on eachother. ironsiblings til i die babey.)





	gonna stick to my guns (like you taught me)

**Author's Note:**

> for aaps, as a thank you for always reading my drafts and being the best cheerleader i could never deserve <3

She sits at the top of the stairs in her pajamas, wet hair sticking to the back of her neck, forehead pressed against the railing. Close enough to supervise the action, far enough away to avoid the sad eyes and introductions to all the “good-friend-of-your-Dad’s”’s that she’s never seen before in her life. Her house is full of those people lately. In and out, bearing casserole dishes and flowers, blankets and cards and gifts. Staring at her and giving smiles that don’t quite reach their eyes as they make the same remark over and over, “God, she looks just like him.”

If he were here she’d get a juice pop and a story out of the whole sneaking-outta-bed thing, but the theme of this weekend, and the rest of her life apparently, is that he isn’t. So she wraps her tiny arms around her pillow and listens to the unfamiliar voices floating up from the floor below, the occasional laugh turning into a choked sob, the clink of bottles on glasses and the overwhelming weight of grief resting upon her childhood home.

A teenager with floppy hair stumbles up the stairs. She recognizes him from the picture in the kitchen, and unlike the other strangers, he doesn’t make any attempt to hide his crying.

“Hi” she whispers, and he jumps.

“Shit, you scared me.”

She giggles for the first time in days.

“Oh, uh, hey, my bad. Um,” he sniffles. “Thor’s in the downstairs bathroom? And I like, really gotta pee.”

She wordlessly points him to the bathroom door

“Thanks.” He wipes his nose on his sleeve, but doesn’t move.

“Are you. Okay? Like do you need anything, should I go get Pepper, or?”

She shakes her head.

“Are you sure? Uh, m-my name’s Peter, by the way”

She hesitates.

“Peter, do you know any good bedtime stories?

**-o-**

She doesn’t cry at the funeral. She’s seen enough movies to know that she should be bawling. That you’re supposed to cry when your dad dies (Simba did). But the tears dont come until later. For now she’s just. Numb. She hears one of the adults mention offhandedly that she’s “too little to really get what’s going on,” and it makes her angry, because she _does_ know. She _knows_ what death is (she’s had her fair share of goldfish, thank you very much). She knows her Dad is gone. But in a lot of ways, it just isn’t real yet.

And in any case, she’s not too _little_. She’s never felt less little in her life.

It takes a couple years for her to realize most people don’t think of five as the age you stop being a kid. Most people don’t see the clear line that she does, because for them years four and five are interchangeable, all jumbled up in the comfortably chaotic mess that is childhood naivety. But most people haven’t seen their mothers cry as hard as Morgan has either though.

Most five year olds haven’t felt the inscrutable anger Morgan has. The outrage and indignation that don’t arrive until a week after he’s gone, but course through her tiny frame and wrack her body with sobs, so very present and yet so difficult to understand. Most people don’t learn as quickly as she has, that life isn’t fair, and makes no pretenses about being so.

Peter takes on the role of honorary big brother in all of this, seemingly deciding to channel all his grief into making sure Tony Stark’s kid doesn’t feel alone. He’s really good at tag, really bad at hide and seek, and he never complains when she makes him wear a tiara to tea parties, or forces him play the villain in whatever superhero story they’re acting out. One evening after dinner she watches him cry into her mom’s shoulder, big hiccuping gasps that make her wish she hadn’t snuck out of bed again. “I miss him so much. It isn’t fair, Mrs. Stark.”

**-o-**

The older she gets, the more people compare her to her father. Friends, family, strangers on the street. She laughs like him. Thinks like him. Snarks like him. Argues like he did. 

The only difference? He was at MIT at her age, and she’s pulling a C+ average and an inability to give a shit. 

Around 15 she starts scouring the internet for any and all videos of her dad. “Stark Industries Press Conference,” “Iron Man News Coverage,” “IRON MAN SECRET IDENTITY REVEALED!!!!!!!!!!!” because yeah, she’s heard the stories, people tell her stories constantly, but it’s not the same as seeing him herself, learning about him on her own terms She searches his face urgently, hungrily, seeking the similarities everyone claims they share. Desperately trying to know the man who makes up half her DNA.

Her mom offers her a giant sweet sixteen party and she turns her down, opting instead for a more intimate family dinner, Peter and Thor and Uncle Bruce and Happy and all the other people brought closer in her father’s absence. She blows out the candles and can’t help but think of him. Whether or not he’d like her. Whether or not he’d be proud of her, in all her mediocrity and teen angst. She never voices this, because she knows it’d be shot down with “of COURSE he’d love you Morgan are you kidding he ADORED YOU” and gushing reassurance of the like. But that doesn’t answer her question. She knows he’d love her, he’s obligated to love her. But would he like who she is. 

Peter teaches her to drive just like he taught her to ride a bike. She fails the exam twice, with a sneaking suspicion that passing on her third try has more to do with pity and a star-struck examiner than with her own driving abilities.

Being a teenager sucks ass enough without living in your dead dad’s shadow, expected to do Big and Brilliant things and carry on the Stark Family Name or what the fuck ever. So when a cute girl who she’s maybe kinda crushing on invites her to a party (“C’mon Stark, live a little”), coincidentally on the same day the tabloids publish “PETER VS MORGAN: Who Is The True Stark Heir?” she figures, why not rebel a bit.

Except she totally regrets that move because cute girl talks her into drinking waaay too much for her first time and promptly ditches her for some dumbass tennis jock and then its midnight and she’s drunk and alone and praying her brother picks up the phone.

“Spiderboyyy” she slurs into the receiver, “How is grad schooooool my dude? Are you studying hard? With your bigfuckingbrain?”

He comes to get her, because of course he does, but not without a lecture. What-the-hell-were-you-thinking-teenagers-are-so-stupid-you-could’ve-gotten-seriously-hurt-or-ended-up-in-the-emergency-room-Morgan-I’m-serious-don’t-ever-pull-a-stunt-like-this-again-blah-blah-blah and that’s easy for him to say, because he’s a fucking genius who’d already done Big And Brilliant things before he even completed his bachelor’s degree, and if anyone should be carrying on the Stark Family Name it’s Perfect Peter. Oh so Responsible and Mature and--

It’s hard not to be jealous of Peter. Obviously she loves him. But some days her anger and longing, the helpless lonely _want_ for a father she’ll never really know, curl up like a snake in her stomach, and she hates Peter. Hates him for getting to be a teenager with Tony Stark. Hates that he got the concerned and overprotective “you-have-to-keep-yourself-safe” lectures about hero work, the heart to hearts about how proud he was, the father figure cheering him on at awards days and graduation ceremonies. Not only that, he got all of those things with _her_ fucking dad, and she’ll never, ever know how that feels. 

So he parks the car and turns to look at her and in that moment all of her anger and insecurities supersede her gratitude

“You’re not my fucking dad, Peter.” she spits

He’s stunned, and she sticks around only long enough to see the wounded look in his eyes before slamming the door and stomping inside, wiping away the tears welling up in her own.

**-o-**

The next day is spent bedridden, partially hungover but mostly just feeling like a Grade-A Piece Of Shit. She tells her mom it’s period cramps, and if Pepper suspects differently, she doesn’t say anything, kissing her on the forehead and heading to a meeting. Morgan curls around her heating pad and drifts off into a nap.

She wakes up to the smell of cheeseburgers and her big brother standing awkwardly in the doorway, clutching a McDonalds bag in one hand and a condensation-covered drink in the other.

“Hey. Uh, can I. Come in?”

“Depends. Is that Dr. Pepper for me?

He gives her a half-smile and hands it to her, plopping cross-legged onto the bed and helping himself to her french fries, and she can’t help but think of the fifteen year old kid who’d sit the same way to help her dig for worms, and her heart aches. She doesn’t deserve him.

“So. Uh, about what happened yesterday.”

She stares at her lap, ears burning.

“Look Morgan, I. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to like, cross a boundary, and it wasn’t my place to-”

“It is your place.” She cuts him off, looking up. “I. I acted like a brat dude. I’m so sorry you had to come get me. And then I was just, ridiculously, inexcusably shitty to you after everything you’ve done for me, and-” she sniffles, but keeps going, the words spilling out like the break of a dam, afraid that if she stops she’ll never be able to say what she wants. “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’m. I’m so grateful to you dude. I’m so grateful that sometimes I feel like I’ll never, ever be able to make it up to you. And it’s like, God, Morgan, here’s another thing for you to just fucking fail at. Because everyone expects this brilliant philanthropist brainiac kid and I don’t know how to be her, but you do. I’m just mean and shitty and selfish but I don’t want to be like that, I want to be like him. And I mean, everybody wants me to be like him, but-” Her voice cracks “ _He_ isn’t here to teach me how.” 

Peter scootches forward and wraps her up in a hug. She lets herself relax into it, crying harder than she has in years.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry Peter.”

He lets her cry herself out, awkwardly petting her hair, ignoring the way she’s probably getting snot all over his t-shirt.

“You don’t have anything to make up to me, you know?” He says after she’s calmed down a bit, pushed herself away and blown her nose.

She rolls her eyes and sniffles.

“Yeah, like hell I don’t.”

“Morgan, I mean it dude. I’m. You really think I’m nice to you so like, Tony Stark’s kid will owe me some kind of favor or something?”

It sounds ridiculous when he says it. She stares at her lap and shrugs.

“That’s just. That’s just what family does for one another.”

He takes a deep, shaky breath

“You aren’t the only one who’s lost people y’know? Who gets constantly compared to someone who isn’t here anymore.”

He doesn’t mean her dad, she realizes. And for maybe the first time ever, she truly thinks about how much Peter has lost. His parents. His Uncle Ben. Her dad. And she feels so unbelievably selfish.

“I. You and Pepper and Aunt May, you’re like. You’re really the only family I have. I’m. I’m just as, if not more grateful to you. I love you guys.”

This time, she reaches forward and hugs him.

“I love you. You’re... I’m so glad you’re my brother.”

He tightens his grip and releases her.

“So we’re good?’

She gives him a watery smile

“We’re good.”

“Good. Cause those cheeseburgers are probably getting cold.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading. I lost my dad when i was about a year older than morgan, so this whole thing is kinda based on my own experiences (and also how fucking had i cried at that funeral scene lmao).
> 
> as always, kudos and comments are so so encouraging, and will make me love you forever. also, im thinking of doing a part two from peter's perspective depending on how well this one does, so lemme know if u would be interested!!! thank u so much ily!!!


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